Sports Journalism Blog
Matt Snider
The
readings featured for this week both share a few key points. To begin with, the
overall message of the two readings was one of a criticism of what “modern”
journalism has become. In Carey’s piece, he dissects the many different traits
of journalism such as its ability to
answer the how and not always the why, the idea of almost scientifically
straight forward prose, as well as the need for filler stories that contain the
unusual or bizarre. These are all important as they not only tell us how the
writing has changed but how the people reading them have the same mindset over
the years. Aside from the more elegant and colloquial writing that was often
featured in pieces of the past that Carey mentions, the readers still look for
many of the traits of journalism from the beginning. Readers still yearn to
find out the “why” of the story or always like to hear the bizarre stories that
accompany every newscast. For example people still remember the “balloon boy”
fiasco years ago and how much press coverage it received. Although it turned
out to be a hoax it still garnered national media attention.
Similarly,
Ford is critical of modern day journalism as well. In particular, Ford focuses
on the notion that newspapers are outdated and dying. Although he doesn’t argue
that idea, he says how rather than focusing on bringing journalism to newer
technology one should be more concerned with improving on the writing that is
taking place today. The writing of today, according to Ford, is based off the
idea that people only want to hear what they want and that the anonymity of the
internet has hindered reputable journalism. In this concept, he has a point in
that anyone in today’s society can stand atop their soap box and write their
views via social media or blog. This allows for a wider spectrum of information
but also limits the validity of the arguments in question. It is impossible to
check the credentials of every individual with a voice. This leads to Ford’s
point of individuals not listening to the news they don’t want to know. This is
where the problem lies as the readers then only want to hear what they already
believe.
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